A Preliminary Political History of the
Kenema Area (part 1)
By Dick Simpson
Government Department, Indiana University
Most histories of the Mende
people treat them as a whole, describing general patterns which occur
throughout the Southern and Eastern Provinces. Thus, we learn from
Peter Kup that the Mende entered Sierra Leone during the
seventeenth-century Vai invasion, which was precipitated by the
collapse of law and order in the Songhai Empire. They did not penetrate
deeply into the country
until late in the eighteenth century when they began to engage in wars
against neighboring tribes.1 Kenneth Little further
informs us that the original settlers lived in small villages supported
by a hunting and horticultural economy. Many of the villages were
founded by a hunter and party while skinning and preparing the meat of
an elephant or other large beast. These villages were separated by
almost impenetrable forest and relationships between them were peaceful
in the main. When later invaders fought their way into the country,
they wrought changes
They
killed any of the local rulers whom they
captured and made slaves of the younger men and women or put them to
work on their farms. Their leaders set themselves up as chiefs; but
difficulties over boundaries brought them into constant conflict with
each other, as well as with any of the original rulers who were able to
withstand them. This helped to establish welfare as the principal form
of activity and institution. 2
Other than such general information, our knowledge of
Mende history is restricted to scattered events such as the Hut Tax War
and to biographical data on a few famous chiefs and warriors. This
article attempts to fill that gap in our knowledge for the immediate
area around Kenema. It is concerned with two distinct historical
periods: 1) the wars of the 19th century; and 2) the rule of Paramount
Chiefs in the 20th century. The sources for this account are oral
tradition as told by elders living today,3
records in
colonial Decree Books, and the writings of earlier researchers.
The Nineteenth Century As with the rest of Mendeland the history of the
Kenema area begins with the isolated villages described by Kenneth
Little. Early in the nineteenth century a Mende or Mandingo people
immigrated
* The author wishes gratefully to acknowledge that the research
resulting in this article was made possible by a grant from the Foreign
Area Fellowship Program. The author is, of course, solely responsible
for the content of the article.
1 A. P. Kup, A History of Sierra Leone 1400-1787. London:
Cambridge University Press, 1961, p. 153. 2 Kenneth Little, The Mende of Sierra Leone. London:
Kegan Paul, 1951, p. 28.
from the Futa Jallon to the eastern border of the country and
across to Kenema. Of the new settlements two towns, Dodo and Komende,
appear to have been centers from which emanated all the other villages
in present-day Nongowa, Lower Bambara and Dodo Chiefdoms. Both were
founded by Mandingo warriors and their followers, as will presently be
told. Not all the immigrants at this time were warriors; some were
hunters, farmers and religious leaders. Still, the end result was the
conquest of the original setlers by the newcomers. They brought with
them two institutions which now became dominant in the area: Islam and
war. These were imposed on the agrarian, animistic people they called
"Mende", which means a sceptical people--literally. "Only when I hear
directly from a person do I tell." After the conquerors and their
culture were absorbed into the original society through intermarriage,
the whole people were known as Mendes.
The first invader to disturb the peaceful Mende was Keni
Karte,4
who must have arrived during the first decades of the nineteenth
century. He became the leader of the Mende-goi (Mende war), which
according to tradition was the first war to occur in this area. It was
a war in which the Mende-Mandingoes fought against neighboring tribes,
particularly the Konos. It seems to have been a war of territorial
expansion prompted by ambition and an increase in population due to the
arrival of new settlers. It was
3 Some informants
to supply oral history were the following:
Kenema Pa Moiwa Kai Samba
- Former section
chief, brother of P.C. Kai Samba
Pa Alpha Seiya
-
Member of Kai Samba (Dakayei) family
Pa Sandi Kallon
-
Descendant of Ngombulango
Fatmata Kallon
-
Mammie Queen
M.B.F. Farboh
-
Son of chiefdom speaker under P.C. Kpassamoray
Pa Momoh Duwai
- Section
speaker, member of Kai Samba (Dakayei) family
Boima Gandi
-
Chiefdom speaker under P.C. Kai Samba
I and II
Pa A. E. Davis
-
Nigerian who came to Kenema during World War I
Largo Alhaji
Vandi Gbow -
Court President under P.C. Kai Samba II
Panguma James Quee
Nyagua - Ex-chief of Lower Bambara Chiefdom,
grandson of Nyagua
My interpreters were B.S. Kai Samba, Chairman of the Town
Council, and Jim Lansana, Principal of the Sierra Leone Church School
at Kenema. Transcripts of the interviews are on file with the Institute
of African Studies, Fourah Bay College. 4 I have chosen spellings for Mende names
which
seem to me best to reproduce the sound although this makes the
transcription of certain Mende letters unsystematic
fought with stick, spears and swords made by local blacksmiths or
bartered through slave trade; there was only one gun for every hundred
warriors. Most battles involved fairly small armies raiding villages by
surprise.5
The rumor of their preparations preceded Karte's warriors
and many Konos fled to Kuranko country further north. Alternatively
Chief Borwe who ruled in the area of the current Nimi Koro Chiefdom
gathered people from ten of his villages and led them to a cave on the
side of a sheer cliff. They stayed there despite harsh privations for
ten years, hiding from the Mendes who continued to ravage the
countryside. The Konos who neither fled nor hid were killed or captured
and all Kono villages and fields were ransacked. After ten years Borwe
descended from the cave and by means of a special Poro convinced the
Konos in Kuranko country to rejoin him in order to plant crops and
begin a village at Duyenge. From this settlement the Konos eventually
repopulated much of their former area but never as densely as before.6
Meanwhile, Karte's successful warriors had firmly established
themselves at Dodo, gained control of the surrounding area, and enjoyed
the wealth and land taken from their Kono neighbours.
While Karte was founding Dodo and waging the Mende-goi,
the warrior Kayo settled in the town of Komende with his family and
followers. The town prospered and with the practice of traditional
slash and burn agriculture the surrounding primary forest was
transformed into secondary growth and farm bush. As the population
increased and farm land became scarce, Komende's inhabitants began
farming elsewhere. A nearby village of Largo grew up around farms
several miles from Komende--first as temporary shelter for Komende
farmers and then as a separate village. The name "Largo" means "he who
gives food" and was derived from its function as purveyor of Komende.
Many other villages in what is today Nongowa Chiefdom grew out of
Komende. One of these was the town of Gombu. From Gombu, Ngombulango
discovered the site of Kenema on a hunting trip and founded a
settlement there five generations ago.
After the Mende-goi came several decades of relative
peace.
Conflicts were restricted to a single village or neighboring
settlement. It was during such a period of relative peace that Nongowa
Chiefdom received its name. A man named Nongo was a hunter residing at
Gombu. One version of the story is that he was very influential and
well known for his wisdom. People, even from other villages, went to
him
to settle their disputes. If Nongo was out
5For a more detailed discussion of
Mende tactical warfare see Rev. W.R.E. Clarke, "The Foundation of the
Luawa Chiefdom." Sierra Leone
Studies,n.s. no. 8, June, 1957, p. 245-251 and Kenneth Little, op. cit. , pp32-36
6 For an account of the war from
Kono perspective see E.R. Langely, "A Tale of Nimi Koro Chiefdom, Kono
District." Sierra Leone Studies,
no. 15, December, 1929, pp. 29-33.
hunting when they arrived, they were told "Gbe-Nongo-Wa" ("Let
Nongo come.") and they would sit and await his return. Another version
is that when Nongo arrived in Gombu and put up his house, the people
drove him away from jealousy. This happened several times, but he
always came back. With each return the people said "Nongo-Wa" ("Nongo
has
come back again?")
After Karte's death, his son Faba became the chief warrior
of the area and the ruler of Dodo.7 However,
the next war
was led not by him but by Korboi, his son-in-law. Korboi's war was
called Kpona-goi (Stick War). It was a war that set village against
village rather than against other tribes. As its name implies it was
fought mostly with stick spears, for it was difficult at the time to
get enough metal to make swords. The new town of Kenema was one of
those invaded during the war and the people fled. But after the war was
over they came back and resettled with Ngombulango still as their
leader. It was the custom that when an owner was driven from his town
in war, he retained "ownership" and could later reclaim the land.
Kpona-goi was the mildest of the nineteenth century wars in the Eastern
Province and after its conclusion life went on as before under another
period of relative peace.
The third war to afflict the Kenema area was by far the
worst. By the time it began around 1880 all the warriors of the earlier
Mende-goi had long since died. Although the war had three stages
lasting at least six years and possibly a decade or more, it usually
is remembered by the name of the first stage, Kpoveh-goi.8
It
began as a war of conquest by the warrior Benya from his home near
present-day Blama. The following is an oral account of the war's
beginning:
It was one man who brought the
Kpoveh War into the chiefdom area. This was a warrior named Benya.
Gbow, the son of Bambaya, was then at his town of Bobobu. He was
ambushed by Benya on a Ramadan Festival night. In the attack he was
cut so badly on the neck that in future when he drank water it used to
come out of that wound. From this attack warfare spread
throughout all the villages. It was an extremely devastating war...it
so devastated the country that no such war had ever been fought in any
country which was as bad.9
7 Pa Sandi
Kallon, op. cit., asserts
that Faba was nephew rather than a son of Karte. 8 The same warriors were also involved
in simultaneous wars from Bandajuma to Kailahun. Accounts of Darwah's
War at Bandajuma may be found in Colonial Office Despatches 205 and 331
(1886). The battles at Kailahun are biscussed by Rev. W.R.E. Clarke, op. cit.Information about the
warriors themselves is given by Max Gorvie, Our people in the Sierra Leone
Protectorate, London: United Society for Christian Literature
(Africa's Own Library No. 6), n.d. 9 Alhaji Vandi Gbow, op. cit.
One meaning of the name "Kpoveh" is "devastation."
More
exactly, it means smearing the vanquished warriors with
excrement taken
from a pot. "Kpo" means "excrement" and "feh" means "pot". The second
stage of the war was known as Wonde-goi because the invading warriors
came from Wonde Chiefdom, while the final stage was the Jama-Jama-goi,
or "war of an assorted group of people." By this time the war had
greatly degenerated. There were no permanent alliances and the
prevailing inclination was to attack, pillage, flee, and retaliate.
This left a vast area completely ravaged - some villages burned by
their own inhabitants to keep them from falling into the hands of
invaders, others destroyed by the attacking forces, and a few managing
to survive under the protection of strong warriors.
Many people fled to Dodo during the Kpoveh War because
Faba was able to offer protection. "The fame of Faba soon spread as a
warrior who defended smaller towns against the ravages of unscrupulous
warriors; his town of Dodo became a 'city of refuge'. On many occasions
he made expeditions in the interest of minority groups of rulers whose
rights were being expropriated by others more powerful than themselves."10
Before the Kpoveh War there had been no tributary system but merely
friendliness between Faba and the people of the area. But afterwards
Faba became the "owner of the land." To each warrior or family elder
who wanted to rebuild his village or found a new one he gave some soil
wrapped in white cloth. This symbol was in effect their lease, which
demonstrated both their right to use the land and Faba's rights to
tribute as landlord. As warfare subsided, Faba gave many such leases.
In this way a new Largo was built by that Gbow who had suffered the
original attack; Hangha was founded by the warrior Kogbandi Vangahun;
and Kenema was re-established by Boima Kahunla (Boima, "the
peacemaker").
Boima Kahunla was the nephew of Kenema's previous founder,
Ngombulango, and had himself lived there before the war. After
refounding the village Kahunla invited Ngombulango and the other
settlers to return and many did. Ngombulango came back but soon died.
It was only at this founding that the town acquired its modern name,
"Kenema." "The name signified a town built in a clear, open place."11
As it had been destroyed in the last war by a surprise attack from the
surrounding forest, it was now moved to an open place so as to be more
defendable.